“Connie Mack, and my information comes from men in the American League, directs the play of his team by a series of signals given from the bench.

“We will say, for instance, that a Philadelphia player reaches first. From that moment he has two things to do. First, he must watch the pitcher. And with a man like (Mordecai) Brown on the slab, this alone is sufficient to keep a man busy. In addition to this, he must also watch Connie Mack, who, by a signal, given with a scorecard, by the crossing of his legs or something of the sort, tells him that he must steal on the next ball, that the hit and run will be tried, or signals some other play. That method keeps the base runner’s attention divided between the bench and the pitcher. He dares not take his eyes off of either.

“With Chance it is different. He has his signals so perfected that all the base runner must do is to watch the man following.

Frank Chance

“Say that Cub player reaches first. When the next batter goes to the plate he has been instructed as to what is expected of him and also what is expected of the base runner.

“And it becomes his duty to signal the man on the bases concerning his duty.

“Maybe Chance has told the man going up to try the hit and run on the second ball. The batter slips the signal to the man on the base…And since (the batter) and the pitcher are on a line, you can see that the whole process is simplified.”

Evers said Chance’s system was better because “it makes it all the more difficult” for opponents to steal signs.

He said his manager was also not rigid in his orders, which “won him the enduring friendship of his men.” And Chance rarely sent players to the plate “with ironclad instruction.”

Evers said:

“He tells you to do the unexpected, and that if you believe you can catch the enemy unawares to do it. That is the reason that the Cubs ‘pull off’ plays.”

Evers said of managers in general:

“I have played under the playing manager and under the man who manages from the bench, and I can’t for the life of me see where the latter is nearly as effective as the playing leader.

“(Frank) Selee was a bench manager and a good one in his prime. Yet he was never part of the play as Chance is, and the reason was because he was not on the field. Even after the ball is hit the playing manager has an opportunity of instructing his players.

“He can tell where to make the play. It’s utterly impossible for a bench manager to do this. Again, the playing manager at a critical stage of the game, and especially if he is playing an infield position, as Chance does, can issue instructions to the pitcher, telling him what and where to pitch. He can do this in a natural manner and without attracting the attention of the crowd.”

Evers noted that for Mack to do the same:

Connie Mack

“(H)e would have to stop the game and send some player to the diamond. That procedure never did any pitcher any good.

“Say that there is a man on second or third and that a dangerous man is up. I have heard Chance tell the pitcher to make the batter hit a bad one, and if the man at the plate refused that it would be alright if he was passed. Mack could not do this. It would be too complicated for signals. About all he could do would be to signal the pitcher to pass the man.

“Connie Mack may have excellent judgment in the selection of his pitchers and in appraising the value of his men, but I am confident that he has nothing on Manager Chance in this department of the game.

“The Chicago man is adept at picking the man who is ‘right.’ Time and again I have known the fellows to pick a certain man to pitch and Chance would select some other. But he usually picked the right one, and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind but that he will pick the right ones in the big series.”

The bench manager beat the playing manager in the 1910 series; Mack and the Athletics beat Chance and the Cubs four games to one.

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On the eve of the 1910 World Series, Chicago Cubs second baseman Johnny Evers made the case in The Chicago Herald that his manager was better than the manager of their American League opponent:

Johnny Evers,

“It is but natural that I should favor Chance. Just the same sentiment alone does not sway me when I say that he will outwit Connie Mack and that his managerial ability will be one of the greatest assets of the Cubs.

“Chance is without an equal in putting fight into a team. Here is a concrete example of his ability to fight against odds. Incidentally, it throws a mighty interesting sidelight into our fight for the pennant of 1908.

“In the latter part of the season, we were playing in Philadelphia. We lost a game which seemed to put us hopelessly out of the race.”

After losing 2 to 1 to the Phillies on September 18, the Cubs dropped 4 and ½ games behind the league-leading New York Giants.

“In those days we were riding to and from the grounds in carriages and we were pretty thoroughly licked that evening.

“We didn’t have a thing to say, for it seemed that our last hope had vanished and that we could not possibly get into the World Series.

“I think it was (Joe) Tinker who finally broke the silence. ‘Well, cap, we are done and we might as well celebrate our losing tonight,’ he said.

“Chance thought a few minute. ‘No, we won’t,’ he answered. ‘Boys, we have been pretty good winners. Now let’s show the people that we can be good losers. Let’s show then that we never give up; that we are never beaten. Let’s show then we play as hard when we lose as when we win, and that we fight for the pure love of fighting, whether it means victory or defeat.’

“Well, sir, you can’t imagine how that cheered us. We did fight and the baseball world knows that we won.”

Frank Chance

The Cubs went 13-2 after that loss to the Phillies, setting the stage for the October 8 game with the Giants to decide the pennant—the replay of the September 23, Merkle’s boner game:

“Chance’s ability as a fighter is not his only asset, for he mixes shrewdness with his fighting.

“And to my mind, he never gave a better illustration of his shrewdness than he did on that memorable afternoon that we met the giants in that single game.”

Evers said “a scheme had been framed up to beat” the Cubs, and when the team was six minutes into their allotted 20 minute of batting practice:

“(John) McGraw came up with bat and ball. We were told that we had been given all the time that was ours and would have to quit. Well, we were careful to find out just how long we had been batting, and Manager Chance then went up to protest.

“Joe McGinnity, the old pitcher, shoved him from the plate and struck him on the chest with a bat. The first impulse of Chance was to strike back. He restrained himself, and, looking the old pitcher squarely in the eye, he told him that he would smash his nose the first time they met outside the ballpark.

Joe McGinnity

“Chance returned to the bench and we talked it over. Chance guessed the scheme in an instant, and within a few hours what we suspected became a fact. McGinnity was there to invite an attack. Had Chance fought him, a policeman would have been called and both men would have been escorted from the field. The Giants would have lost a man they had no intention of losing, while the Cubs would have lost their manager as well as their first baseman, and the team would have been demoralized.”

Evers said Chance’s restraint “gave me a better insight into his real character than anything I ever witnessed before.”

By 1912, Ed Remley of The Fort Worth Star-Telegram had had enough of talk of “scientific” and “inside” baseball, which he called a “Figment of writers’ too active brains:”

“This ‘Inside baseball’ stuff and statistical dope that is being given so much space in the low-priced magazines, makes us tired. Yesterday we read a story in which an attempt was made to prove that when ‘Good Night’ (Frank) Baker came to bat against (Christy) Mathewson (in game 3 of the 1911 World Series) the chances were 367 and 2/5 to 1 against his making a home run. Once we read a story by (Hugh) Fullerton and Johnny Evers in which those gentlemen attempted to prove that there were just three places, six inches each in width, where a ground hit ball could pass safely through the infield.

“This line of bunk listens well to the public who attend all their baseball games through the newspapers—we sometimes think they are a majority of the fans—but to the close follower of the game they look like far-fetched attempts to make a story where no story is. Some of this stuff is so thin that even a schoolboy athlete will snort when he reads, but the magazine editors but it up and illustrate it with cuts borrowed from the sporting page.”

Fullerton

Remley said it wasn’t about baseball, but selling magazines:

“Five years ago about one baseball story in three years drifted into the covers of the big 10-cent monthlies. Now scarce an issue of any of the popular ones is without its baseball yarn of some character. It can betoken one of two things, either there is a stronger interest in baseball or else the magazine editors are just beginning to wake up and see its possibilities as a feature.

“If baseball has become a magazine subject because of a natural public demand for that species of pabulum, well and good, and the more of it the public gets the better…On the other hand, if this writing all around the subject of baseball is a result of an exaggerated view of its value on the part of the editors it is going to do the game no good, for the public will soon tire of that kind of hysteria just as it does of anything else that is boomed too much—towns, religions, etc…”

The emphasis on statistics bothered Remley more than anything:

“Meanwhile the fact remains that you can’t reduce the game to figures. Not even the most skillful statistician can make out the story of a game from the box score. The figures are an interesting commentary, sometimes, but the real story of baseball will not fit within the box.

“Analyzing the factors which go up to make a successful baseball team, the following ratio is discovered: physical fitness, 20 percent; skill, 60 percent; chance, 20 percent. That’s mere opinion, too, for the exact ratio never can be determined, but it is evident that some such ratio must obtain. It is the existence of this large percent of chance in baseball which makes it impossible to reduce the probabilities of the game to figures. By tossing a dime in the air 2000 times it will be discovered the coin will fall heads up approximately half the time. Just so, by taking a large enough number of cases generalizations may be arrived at in baseball, but when the attempt is made to apply these generalizations to concrete cases, the theory falls down. “

Remley concluded:

Baseball will never be a science, therefore, and the attempts to make it appear so are bound to be discredited sooner or later. It is about time for the magazines to can this statistical dope from their pages.”

The following year, Remley left Fort Worth and joined the staff of The Chicago Inter-Ocean. Tne Inter-Ocean and The Chicago Record-Herald were consolidated into The Chicago Herald in 1914, and Remley for a time–until his death from pneumonia in 1915–became a co-worker of Hugh Fullerton, whose “inside baseball” he so abhorred.

Johnny Evers was another in a long line of former players who felt baseball began to decline sometime around the day they stopped playing.

In 1931, he made his case to reporter James L. Kilgallen of the International News Service. Kilgallen, called “an editor’s dream of a reporter,” by Damon Runyon, occasionally wrote about baseball in between covering, as he said, “every conceivable type of story in this country and abroad.” He was also the father of columnist Dorothy Kilgallen.

James L. Kilgallen

Evers told him:

“What a cinch they have nowadays. And look at the dough they get. Today everything is hunky dory for the ballplayer who makes the big league grade. Fine hotels. Excellent grub. Best trains. Pullman accommodations. Taxi’s to the ballparks.

“What a difference from the old days, why, do you know when I used to play with the Cubs we had to take a bath with the cows and the pigs in that old West Side ballpark in Chicago. No needle shower baths for us in those days.”

Kilgallen said of the former Cubs second baseman:

“I found Evers an interesting personality. He did not display any bitterness when he compared the game today with his time. Rather there was a note of surprise in his conversation because of the fact he does not believe the players now in the major leagues appreciate the easy comforts they enjoy in these times and the sensational salaries they receive.

“Evers used to be a slim, nervous, crabby little player, full of the old fight when he was in his prime. The National League never had a scrappier player and he can be pardoned for showing impatience for the ‘easy come easy go’ attitude of some of the players of today. Evers, now a middle-aged man is still well-preserved. He is heavier of course but he has no paunch. The glint in his light blue eyes is not as combative as it used to be but the old, aggressive underslung jaw of his suggests there’s a lot of scrap left in the old boy yet.”

Johnny Evers

As for that “easy come easy go attitude” of current players, Evers said “With a tinge of asperity in his voice:”

“It used to be an honor to break into the big leagues. Nowadays, however, a lot of fellows who are signed up take it as a matter of course. They don’t seem to feel the pride in our uniforms that we used to in the old days. Today they play for a big batting average, knowing that when they talk salaries it’s their batting average that governs their pay to a large extent.”

“And if I do say it myself, we played as good ball—if not better—than they do today. We played more scientific ball, at any rate.”

In the end, the not “bitter” Evers was convinced that many of the players who followed in his footsteps just didn’t care that much about playing the game:

“A stool pigeon is just what a lot of fellows in uniform develop into. This type sit on the bench month in and month out, and don’t seem to care whether they are in the lineup or not. They’d have to keep me out of the lineup. That’s the way we all used to be. Fighters for our place on the team.”

The Detroit Free Press had no love for Cap Anson of the Chicago White Stockings, and observed in 1888:

“The majority of the Chicago players are courteous, gentlemanly fellows, and as Anson naturally finds no pleasure in their companionship he is generally rather lonesome.”

Cap Anson

The Cincinnati Enquirer had a similarly low view of the entire White Stockings team in 1879:

“The Boston Herald says the greatest trouble with the new Chicago nine will be able to tell whether it will try to win. We think its greatest problem will be whether or not it will keep sober.”

—

Charles Webb Murphy was often asked after giving up his interest in the Chicago Cubs if he regretted leaving baseball for much less glamorous businesses. In 1914, Hugh Fullerton of The Chicago Examiner said Murphy answered the question by telling people:

Charles Webb Murphy

“Well, not one of my gravel pits has jumped to the Federal League.”

—

Arthur Irwin was one of the best-known scouts of his time, but by 1912, he declared that most of the good players were gone:

Arthur Irwin

“Scouting isn’t like it used to be. There was a time when a man could go through the bushes and pick up all kinds of men; but times have changed since then. The scout who is lucky to pick up one really good ballplayer in a season can congratulate himself and feel satisfied he has earned his salary.”

In May of 1911, Chicago Cubs second baseman Johnny Evers suffered a mental breakdown—The Chicago Daily News said that in a letter to club President Charles Webb Murphy:

“Evers complains that his nerves are completely gone. He is unable to remain on his feet for 10 minutes at a time and the attack is so severe that it has caused large swellings about his face.”

Evers rejoined the team in June, but his condition required another five-week absence from the team in July and August, resulting in him being limited to just 46 games, including 11 at third base—he had previously played the position just three times during his career.

Johnny Evers

Late in the season he talked to a reporter from The Chicago Evening Post about playing third:

“Right now it strikes me that there is more luck in playing third base. You get them or you don’t. I mean by that the hot shots. When one of those line drives or swift bounders comes at you the isn’t time to play the ball. You leap and knock the ball down if you can. If it isn’t right at you it is past you so quickly that you can’t get a square crack at it.”

“Playing the third base is pretty much of a gamble. If the ball happens to be hit right at you then you get it. Otherwise, there is nothing doing.”

Evers compared it to his usual position at second base:

“Down on second, it is different. There you have to play the ball, come in or go back. That’s one condition which makes the play at third more difficult than at second.

“There is a whole lot more inside baseball at second then there is at third. You play in for a bunt or you play deep. There is no moving to right or to left. When you are at second you have more opportunities. You study the batter and you play him accordingly. Maybe you take a step or two nearer second or a step or two nearer first.

Evers

“Nothing like that at third. You play in for a bunt or you play back for a clout.

“When it comes to throwing, third base is by far more difficult than second…And the difficulty is not in making the throw so much as it is that a man scarcely has enough to do to keep his arm in shape. It is this which makes it so much easier for a man to injure his arm playing third. We’ll say that he goes six or seven innings without a ball being hit to him. In the eighth or ninth he grabs the ball and checks it to first. The chances of injuring his arm on a play like that are greater…Down at second base, a man probably handled the ball 20 times.”

In the end, he was not ready for a permanent switch:

“After playing both positions it is my opinion that second base overshadows third as a place for inside baseball. There is where a man has opportunities of applying his knowledge of batters. It is the position where he can play the ball as well as the batter. At third a man attempts to stab a fierce drive. If he succeeds all well and good, and if he doesn’t, he can turn and watch the outfielder chase it. It’s hit or miss.”

Evers never mastered third base; he made three errors in 31 chances during those 11 games in 1911—and committed eight errors in 61 total chances in the 21 games he played at third throughout his career, an .869 fielding percentage at the position.

In 1912, fully recovered–he told reports he “felt nothing from his breakdown,” Evers appeared in 143 games, and had his best season at the plate, hitting .341.

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When Joe Jenkins, backup catcher for the Chicago White Sox, enlisted in the army shortly after the 1917 World Series, it didn’t cause much concern for the team’s prospects. The Chicago Daily News said:

“With Ray Schalk behind the plate, the Sox could give away a dozen Jenkinses and not miss them.”

Joe Jenkins

Malcolm MacLean of The Chicago Evening Post said regardless of Jenkins’ value to the White Sox, the catcher was committed to the war effort. He recounted a conversation with the usually “happy-go-lucky” Jenkins during Chicago’s spring trip to Marlin Springs, Texas before the 1917 season:

“(I) spied Jenkins sitting alone in the smoking compartment of the special car. There was no smile on his face. He invited us to have a seat.

“’”I’m thinking about this war,’ he said. ‘It’s up to us young, unmarried fellows to get busy, and I’m going to be one of them within a few months.’”

Jenkins went to officer’s training school at Camp Gordon, Georgia, and then to France as a second lieutenant with the 132nd Infantry Regiment, composed primarily of soldiers from Chicago’s South Side.

Jenkins at Camp Gordon

Shortly after the armistice was signed in November of 1918, MacLean was a given a letter Jenkins had written to a friend in Chicago several weeks earlier. MacLean said Jenkins had been “promoted, while under fire from second to first lieutenant.”

According to MacLean, “At one stage of the game, all the other officers of his company being disabled, Jenkins commanded his company in an advance,” and as a result received the promotion. MacLean said Johnny Evers mentioned in a letter that he had met Jenkins in France shortly after the latter was promoted.

Jenkins also wrote two letters to White Sox President Charles Comiskey—as with the letter MacLean was given, both letters to Comiskey were written before the armistice, but received weeks after—and were printed in Chicago newspapers.

In the first, Jenkins wrote:

“My Dear Mr. Comiskey…I have been in the front line for four days, having gone up to look over the situation with the major.

“Believe me, I am a brave man, but I did not bargain to eat any of these high explosives. One of the shells just missed me about ten feet. It hit on top of the trench and had it hit in the trench I would not be writing to you today.

“To be honest with you, this is some league that I am in and it is a lot faster than the old American, for you know that when you boot one in this league you are through and can’t come back.”

Jenkins wrote to Comiskey again, approximately three weeks later:

“Well I thought you had forgotten me, but today I got your letter, and you may be sure that I was delighted to hear from you. We have been scrapping for the past ten days on the Meuse, North of Verdun, and believe me, the fighting has been hot and sharp. We have just been moved to a more quiet sector, the purpose for which is rest, and believe me we can use it nicely. It is becoming apparent that Germany is through, and in the last offensive I was in their spirit and morale was at a very low ebb.”

Jenkins also assured Comiskey that the Chicago Southsiders in the 132nd “can go some.”

The catcher told Comiskey he planned on joining the Sox at Mineral Wells in the spring of 1919 and promised:

“I will bring something back in the line of a trophy for your office with me as shipping it would be risky. This trophy that I refer to was taken where the fighting was thickest.”

There is no record of what the “trophy” was or whether Jenkins brought it to Comiskey.

Jenkins said in closing:

“Give my regards to all the boys and tell them that in this league over here the pitchers all have plenty on everything that they throw.”

Jenkins made it back to the US on April 15, 1919—on the same ship as Sergeant Grover Cleveland Alexander—The Chicago Tribune said:

“Jenkins fought in Flanders, the Argonne, and St. Mihiel. He escaped unwounded and looks ready to play baseball at a moment’s notice.”

Sergeant Grover Cleveland Alexander

He didn’t make it to Mineral Wells but joined the Sox for their opener in St. Louis. The Daily News said he told manager Kid Gleason he was available to pinch hit:

“’You know I’m a valuable man in a pinch, Kid. When I came up to hit in a pinch over there the Kaiser lit out for Holland and he’s been there ever since.”

1919 White Sox, Jenkins is bottom left

Ready to play or not, Jenkins appeared in just 11 games for the pennant-winning White Sox—four behind the plate—and had three hits in 19 at bats.

He remained with the Sox through the 1919 World Series—a member of two World Series teams, he did not appear in a game in either series—and was released that winter.

His big league career over, Jenkins played 11 more seasons in the minors, retiring in 1930.

The Chicago Inter Ocean sent a reporter—a female reporter named Lois Willoughby—to get to know:

“The feminine element (that) is a silent factor in baseball of no mean importance. It exerts a wonderful influence on the game…The women who preside over homes of West Side Players.”

The Chicago Cubs wives of 1911:

“The wives of members of the Chicago National League baseball team are always at the games. They are thirty-third-degree fans—all but Mrs. (Nellie) Ed Reulbach…who is quite indifferent to the sport, and who wouldn’t know a base hit from a double play.”

As for the other wives of the defending National League Champions:

“They are comely, intelligent, charming women. They know everything about the game. They appreciate the value of every play. They watch the contest with unflagging interest. They cheer their husbands on to victory…Through ups and downs, they maintain unbounded enthusiasm and unfaltering faith in the Cubs. They show it the only way they can by their daily presence in the grandstand.”

“She may come at the last moment, accompanied by her Boston Bull pup, but she is generally comfortably settled for the afternoon before the game is called. This beautiful woman, with golden hair and blue eyes, shares her husband’s enthusiasm in baseball.

Edyth and Frank Chance

“’Do I come every day?’ she asked as though she could not have heard the question right. ‘Why, of course, I do. I wouldn’t miss a game for anything. I think baseball is the greatest sport there is. It is a profession now and an honorable one, at that. Every year it is exacting men of higher standards…Baseball is such a clean, healthful sport that I should think it would appeal to everyone.”

“I think Mr. Sheckard is the best left fielder in existence. And he ought to be. Jimmy plays baseball, reads baseball, talks baseball and lives baseball…Baseball is the best profession and cleanest sport. I don’t worry about the future. With good health and good discipline, a man ought to get along all right anywhere.”

Sarah Jane Sheckard

Ruby Tinker declared her husband the “greatest shortstop in the world,” and said:

“I never saw Joe on the diamond until after we were married. I have watched him make many fine plays. I think the best one was the day following his reinstatement this year (Chance suspended Tinker for “the remainder of the season” citing “gross indifference, on August 5—two days later he was back in the lineup) when he played against (Christy) Mathewson and got four hits.”

Ruby Tinker

She said her life revolved around baseball “from morning until night,” and during the off-season as well:

“Joe goes into vaudeville in the winter and gives baseball talks with pictures. I go with him as an ‘assisting artist,’ which means that I stand in the wings and prompt him…The winter spectators are just as enthusiastic as the summer ones.”

Of those who considered baseball a less than honorable profession, she said:

“They don’t know what they’re talking about. Baseball is a good profession, a good sport, and good fun.”

Helen Evers insisted that despite reports there were no bad feelings among the 1911 team:

“The Cubs are a fine lot of men. There seems to be perfect harmony this year, and they do good team work.”

As for her husband’s well-known difficult personality, she said:

“He has the reputation for being ‘crabby’ at times. Perhaps he is, but that’s what put him where he is.”

“But when the jinx gets him! If you don’t know about the jinx you can’t understand how serious it is. I believe most of the players are superstitious, and they have enough to make them so. I always hope he won’t see a funeral on the way to the game. That’s a sure sign of bad luck…there are scores of hoodoos and a baseball hoodoo seems hard to break. One of the good signs is a wagon load of empty barrels. I’m sure I would never know when they are empty. These things probably count for nothing, but they seem to affect the nerves of the players.”

Back to Mrs. Reulbach who while not entirely against the sport, expressed her basic disdain for her husband’s chosen career:

“As a wholesome sport, I think baseball has no equal…But as a profession, it does not appeal to me. It is only for a few years at the most and the fascination of the game must make other professions or lines of business seem dull and monotonous.”

And while conceding the Reulbach’s years in baseball had been “pleasant and profitable” she said:

“I trust Eddie Reulbach Jr. will not be a professional baseball player.”

Nelly Reulbach with Ed Jr.

Ed Reulbach Jr., then 2-years-old, suffered from a variety of illnesses throughout his short life and died in 1931.

Willoughby concluded that as the 1911 National League race wound down:

“Hoping against hope, these faithful women have seen the pennant slipping farther and farther away from them.”

“If a fellow is going to cut any ice he needs ice picks and the first way for a manager to win is to get men who can deliver, and men intelligent enough to take care of themselves.

“My theories in regard to what constitutes a winner are the only ones, and I use them in instructing my players what to do. I used them in pitching, and they worked out, and I believe any player will succeed if he follows them.”

Clark Griffith

Griffith said baseball was “Ninety-nine and fifteen sixteenths” courage and nerve:

“It is more than that—it is what ballplayers call ‘guts’—which is courage with aggressive confidence behind it…The first thing to do to win baseball games is to go after anyone who does not wear a uniform that looks like yours, and go after him hard. Hand every opposing player anything that will make him weaken or show the yellow. Anytime I can convince my men that they are going to win and the other fellows that they are going to lose, I’ll win a pennant.”

He believed his confidence could successfully intimidate opponents:

“The best system of winning games is to tell the other fellow that you are going to beat him. Tell it to him before the game starts and tell him in a way that will convince him. You cannot convince him unless you believe it yourself. I keep telling them all the time, and I believe it myself until the game is over and sometimes even then.”

Griffith said what he wanted most was for his players to:

“Take chances; any chance to gain an inch of ground or a base…Go after the game with intelligence and force every point as hard as possible…The player who takes chances of hurting himself seldom hurts either himself or his opponent and he will make a weak opponent run away. More players get hurt stopping up on their feet and giving up before they are touched than are damaged in sliding to bases.”

He said that aggressiveness should also be directed at umpires:

“Then claim every point and claim it quick. Holler. ‘No, no’ real quick and beat the umpire to it on every close play a la (Johnny) Evers. The umpire may be perfectly honest and square but on a close play the fellow who yells quickest is much more likely to get the decision. I do not believe in fighting umpires or nagging at them. I believe in yelling quickly. Yelling quickly beats yelling loud all to pieces. It is not cheating a bit, but simply protecting yourself on close plays not so much to get the decision yourself as to keep the other fellow from getting it.”

Griffith led the Chicago White Sox to the inaugural American League pennant during his first season as a manager in 1901. And despite not winning one since, was very confident about his “theories” for success:

“These things, taken together with a little good pitching and perhaps one star pitcher, will win any pennant if carried out correctly and persistently, regardless almost of the mechanical ability of the players on the team.”

In the end, Griffith was unable “to win any pennant.”

His Reds teams in 1910 and 1911 were both sub .500 clubs and finished in fifth and sixth place. He joined the Washington Senators in 1912, and finally with “one star pitcher’ he managed the team to two-second place finishes (1912-13), but did not win a pennant there either. He stepped down as manager after the 1920 season to devote himself full time to his ownership duties.

One Star Pitcher

He ended his managerial career with a 1491-1367 record over 20 seasons.